zero minus one equals minus one, the math teacher said, i struggled like you do when you are trying to slip silk stockings on when your legs are still shower fresh and slightly moist, felt as if my brain was balancing on one edge of a hemisphere that I was unfamiliar with and it was dizzying.
i couldn't conceive of, for instance, not having a red, rosy, apple on the mahogany drop leaf table, taking an apple away which wasn't there, how could it not be there if it wasn't there to begin with?
he, with his forehead so full of equations that it was practically a five-head, utilized a cavalier command of english to yell, tell me that i was a waste of space, a vacuum, a veritable void in the eglatarian string of evolution. i was not impressed with his ability to taste words just long enough to spit them out, they showered me all over again in a spittle-sprayed sea of vapid verbosity.
now, i love language, revel in the way it rolls from the coloured marbles in the mind's eye to crystalize as pictures painted from within, i call it airbrushing with the tip of the tangents of the tongue. but he was beyond any other need i felt than to floor him like a pavement artist, covered in concrete, open to the elements.
sir, i replied, may i personify zero minus one equals minus one? if a man acting like a prick isn't standing there and we take away a man acting like a prick, then we are left with the defeceit of a man acting like a prick minus a prick.
the detentions and demerits were worth witnessing every shade of fuschia that rushed across his brass neck. i still recall the scenario where i had to teach him that to teach me he needn't make me feel smaller because he was taller. it's a memory neither of us need have made, we both acted like pricks, but only one of us got the point and neither had a conscience.
A contest entry
- quote prompt by polly filla.
525 points, ended October 24, 2008, 10 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - short, colorful, to the point by Avani.
800 points, ended December 24, 2008, 44 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
your thoughts please...
Comments
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This is what I call brilliant. Not many writes do that to me. 1000 X Clappy for you.
Very clever.
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How very GOLD!!! I shall indeed be back for more of these tasty morsels. Your work deserves a second and perhaps third read to better digest the tasty tidbits hiding just out of minds eye. I did enjoy this journey.
Az
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Love it...
Intelligent, thoughtful, read it twice & made me smile both times...
Creative, well thought out & wonderfully crafted...
Keep up the good work...
Well done!!!
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Thankyou...
Mercy me Fritz...ploughing your way through my writes has been a gift to me...am delighted this rather unusual write made you smile
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Wonderful
Very creative and so well done. Congratulations on the gold it was well deserved.
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[add-it/ for it's all about the "now"...so there's no accounting for truth, assuming denomination as proof!]
but I'm rubbish at maths, so maybe I just got 'issues'
I split the atom in my head before (by a pure fluke) and so far, I'm yet to find a suitable translation, to twinkle as I wave...
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I can't dance a duet with numbers either, they are too set in their ways and are not malleable, the number eight, it sits there and says little beyond the octopi...
denomination as proof...wheelbarrows full of Marks in Germany that were needed to buy a loaf of bread and the Euro no longer being just the name of a train with a twinkle of a star that is waved away...
Hon, if you understand me then we both need a good night out on the town, painting by numbers and colouring with poetry!
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I get you, and I'm sure we'd flash like glitter off a cavalcade on rhumba! if we danced...
yet I sort-of-believe numbers do/can explain the way, yet I got there another way, and saw the numbers as I was there, in it...when I left it, I couldn't remember the exact relevance (of the numbers to my 'starry night') although I remember thinking (while I was 'my star'] at the time 'oh yeah, that makes sense'
...something to do with Black Holes (?) in reverse, considering the surge into Shape
poet, you might know I'm better with The Biggest Things in friendly conversation...bashing off with good heads I think write true; like you!
so don't hold your breath for any revelatory poetry from me; I'm just too lame as soon as I press 'record'
I'm awkward being filmed, as well...apart from one time, so I keep that in my memory & try to avoid a repeat performance
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Ahh, you are my kinda gal, glitter we would wear and also cause to razzle dazzle and yes we'd dance poetry's little legs off, mine would then walk to the bar and buy the drinks whilst you explored your inner-inter-stellar-self and felt into the cage of ribs to be counted in the black hole, though I have an affinity of a sense of the sureal making sense statisically in a dream/awake state, that semi consciousness and it was not quite 42 and found in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy but it was like oh my that is the answer, it was an amazing feeling, so disappointed that I forgot it
Am going to have a quick scoot around and then am signing out hon so will say toodle pip polly filla
sweet dreams, poetry, justice and statistics
a title for you maybe?
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oh, I'll pass on 'exploring my inner...self', as you said it: "explored". To Death, baybee!
I'll join you at the bar, and we'll drink...to Lily The Pink!
Salut!
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I've been toying with the idea/writing something about 'the nature of statistics'
"now, i love language" I think, like you!
(for we are all consumers?) -
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Indeed, we all digest words and also numbers, I'd be interested to read the nature of statistics written poetically, please would you let me know if you post it?
Ahh, you make me smile by understanding the love of language, even some wordsmiths do not love words but just utilize them to build what they need.
So, 'tis a vertibal joy when language is revelled in all its verdant glory
( methinks maybe I just consumed a lot of adjectives lol )
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I've been thinking that (".some...just utilize them to build what they need.)
while others just enjoy themselves, unaccountably!
like here! Your memory all adds-up, 'Champ
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yes..when there are word bank restrictions/word count/syllable count/meter et al...it's then that words are dismissed for a different reason or included for another reason as opposed to simply free versing from mind to the finger tip of the lip of the pen...still...some like those boundaries...and they are a challenge...yet is there anything as soul satisfying as pouring a stream of consciousness without needing to measure the current of electricity in the poetic equivalent of kilojoules?
Go with the flow...find your mojo...perhaps the nature of statistics is coloured by a need to try and tidy us and other things into columns that are simply utilized for another set of analysis...like those adverts...twenty percent of people did not pass out trying this new product...but when looked into the control group was only ten...so twenty percent meant that only two out of ten people didn't pass out...
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hilarious
ten out of ten for the title alone.the poem does not disappoint.the penultimate verse is a scream.
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EXCELLENT!
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oh i love this so much! fabulous use of language!
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so clever and tongue twisting at times. I needed a chuckle, which this delivered in all of its glory.
What a prick he was...lol. And I would have gladly suffered jail time to see the fuchsia in his neck as well.
what a delight to read.
♥Becky♥
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Yvette . . . sometimes you floor me . . . THIS IS BRILLIANT and hilarious all at the same time . . . I so love it when you allow the language inside your head to ramble across the page . . . there is so much freedom in this write . . .
peace sister,
Marc
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ah; I KNEW IT!
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Lord.....
Title of course
was a witty eye catcher...
excellent.
The entire piece was quite a surprise ...
The fourth stanza was just art personified...
as was the piece in it's entirety...
But for me....that forth stanza was like the chores....
absoulutly loved it.
The tone was sophisticated and very hip.
Really enjoyed this one.
Peace always,
Lowell Poe.
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This made me smile with it's cleverness, "spittle-sprayed sea of vapid verbosity" "coloured marbles in the mind's eye". There are so many good lines running through, and colorful too "fuschia that rushed across his brass neck"
Excellent!
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Lovely love
And you do have a way with words. I have a title for a poem that I'd love to read by you. Your prompt is..."Airbrush". This is for me.
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Excellent
You've penned an excellent narrative poem, Yvette, and humorous one at that. Deserving
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Superb
Thanks for the chuckle; very well written, indeed. Your imagery is great. Thanks for sharing this one with us.
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I, too, am stunned by this brilliant concept of the mathematical conundrum. But, is it poetry? or is it prose? Methinks a free write poem.
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you've outdone yourself with this one me thinks
i'm sitting here with the biggest grin on sometimes ya just gotta act like a prick and not feel bad about it 
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I'm stunned as usual by your work. This may just be my favourite poem of your's I think. Brilliant!
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